2.22.2009

That was fun!

Today I had planned a little surprise road trip for our kid. I had originally planned to do it as a surprise for my hubby, too (today is his birthday..."he's 37, he's not old!" /Monty Python humor), but decided that he may or may not like the idea, so I ran it by him first.

We left the house around noon and made the hour drive to Grand Rapids to see this movie - IMAX Under The Sea 3D. I have seen an IMAX movie (saw the Lion King at the same theater when DS was about 2.5--that was his first movie, which he has no recollection of, as I discovered today), but never a true 3D, much less on that scale.

It was very cool. I've always been an undersea geek...at one time in my life I really wanted to be a marine mammalogist...well, until I found out that one had to be really good at Math, so that kind of blew that dream. Several inner ear infections over the past decade have also left me with some vertigo and motion issues, so now SCUBA diving is likely out of the question for me, as well. This movie was about as close as I will ever get to a true undersea diving experience.

The movie is not very long--only about 40 minutes--but really a visual treat and Jim Carrey's narration was wonderful. His voice is really perfect for that sort of thing--almost comforting and able to engage children well.

Yesterday I ran in what might be the worst conditions ever. I was obsessively watching weather.com all day long to pick a 90 minute window to go out. The best spot I found was later in the afternoon when the prediction was for winds around 6mph. And they were when I first went out. About 30 minutes later they suddenly picked up to 20mph with 30mph gusts. This would not have been so bad were it not also snowing and there being 6" of wet cement-like snow underfoot.

So footing was bad, as was visibility. A couple of snowflakes were driven onto my eyeballs so violently that I felt like someone had thrown a handful of sand in my eyes. And most oncoming drivers didn't want to cross the deep ridges of snow in the middle of the roads, so instead gave me little room and threw a wave of heavy snow on my legs as they passed. And the snow was just the right density and consistency to keep gumming up on the bottoms of my shoes, which necessitated several stops to manually remove the globs underneath the arches of my feet.

My planned 7 ended up being just over 6.25. I lost my resolve a bit by the end of this week. It's a good thing Spring is just around the corner, as I (and many others in this part of the globe) am not sure how much more of this crap I can endure--especially while trying to increase my mileage while training for a marathon.

The one thing that made the miserable run worth it...about a half mile from home a guy coming up behind me in the other lane slowed, rolled the window down on his 4WD Jeep and said with a smile "I admire your dedication." I'm sure this was code for "you're batshit insane," but it made me smile and say "thank you" all the same. It was the right thing to hear at the right time. While many drivers would be happy to run me off the road rather than offer me a few extra feet and move into the carless oncoming lane, this guy made a point of being kind and encouraging. I will make a point of watching for his vehicle in the neighborhood again and giving him a hearty wave. :)

3 comments:

You are absolutely insane and I totally admire you for it. I get wimpy in the snow. I can handle cold (well, slightly tolerate it as long as it doesn't plunge into the negatives) but I cannot do ice or snow.

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